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Comment by pcthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

> So basically GenZ realized that a company is not your friend, they can fire you the moment you are not valuable. I feel sorry for older generations that let themselves be exploited, there's no point in being loyal to a company.

Millenials and especially Gen X had a lot of things easier. You could get some stable job and coast and do fine in the economy 20-30 years ago. I think your sympathies for the way us gens X/Y approached jobs 10 years ago is misdirected (though I suspect a lot of Millenials, especially those such as myself who aren't highly compensated, are taking a more individualistic approach to their careers now as well)

Gen Z is out here trying to survive and they've gotten an incredibly raw deal, I'd sympathize with them instead.

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>Millenials and especially Gen X had a lot of things easier.

I'm curious what years you think this applies to.

People born in the 70's and 80's, who are 40-50 years old currently.

Millenials cover the mid-80s to mid-90s, 70s and 80s is mostly GenX as far as I know.

Millenials definitely didn't have it as easy, most were in their first years of career (1-5 years) when 2008 happened.

People born in 1985 entered the workforce in 2006 when finishing a three year degree. The worst financial crisis since the great depression started two years later.

Not sure what sort of rose tinted glasses you have about the 00s but they were a lot worse than today.

Same. I'm a millennial and 30 years ago I was in elementary school; not exactly looking for a job.

I think this is the first time I get to be like, "kids today don't know how hard we had it", so that's a neat experience I suppose. What I won't say is that I think they've got it any easier; indeed it seems like every generation since X has gotten a worse deal.

Just the overall atmosphere when the majority of millenials were entering the job market (I realize this is a good ~15-year period, but at least 10 of those years were decent) was so much better than Gen Z has it (right now).

Gen X especially had some really amazing opportunities, but income to purchasing power has been more favourable for pretty much the entire time Gen X was coming of age.

Personally, I'm just thinking about what entry-level salaries were 15 years ago compared to the cost of real estate, and I could see a clear path to homeownership for a lot of people entering the workforce at that time, even outside of the top 10% paying jobs

Gen Z unfortunately doesn't really have a practical path to homeownership (in big western cities anyway) outside of A) inheritance/family support, or B) entering the workforce into a position that would put them in the top 3-5% of their cohort

> Millenials and especially Gen X had a lot of things easier

All I remember is a constant fear of cancer, AIDS, and massive unemployment.

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